August 19, 2026

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Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
6 hours ago

He looks as if he is disappointed in you.

happyhappyhappy
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Reply to  nighthawks
10 hours ago

Dang it! Gone too soon.

Voxx
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Reply to  nighthawks
9 hours ago

I was lucky enough to see her in concert …Montreal Forum late 60’s.
During the show , she jumped down from the stage and did a little stroll in the crowd. Everybody was quite surprised but respected her space. She chatted up a young man she found to her liking.

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
5 hours ago

An itinerant blade-sharpener?

Arfside
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Reply to  Liverlips McCracken
5 hours ago

And very necessary. My grandfather was a butcher, and he had a large whetstone in his garage, powered by an electric motor. When he retired, I would have loved to have kept it, but at 15 or so, I had no place to put it. I still keep things that I “might” use some day. It’s paid off often enough that I can (almost) justify the mess. 🙂

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
4 hours ago

Yes … a knife grinder in New York City, in 1896.

I don’t know that I’d call him itinerant… but yes, if you mean he worked on the street, and not in a shop.

But vendors and people offering a service tended to frequent a certain location, as much as they could, in order to develop a reputation, and to be easily found, for instance, by repeat customers, or people to whom they’d been recommended.

Another photograph by Alice Austen, who, as I mentioned the other day, took over 7,000 pictures of the immigrants and street vendors of New York City…

Talk about itinerant, she traveled the city on her bicycle, alone, carrying about 50 pounds of equipment. Unheard of for a woman in her day…. when even being a photographer was unusual.

BTW… this just made me recall that we actually had a somewhat itinerant knife grinder who came through our neighborhood when I was a child… except I think “itinerant” usually means going from town to town, maybe living in different places.

I don’t know whether this fellow had a regular route, or how far afield he traveled.

I know he returned now and then. His knife sharpening business was in his little red van, and my mother flagged him down more than once to sharpen her carving knife… I don’t know about other kitchen knives, but she never had good ones, so maybe not.

All I remember is that he let me watch, and I was fascinated.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
4 hours ago

A Menominee woman holding her baby in a beaded cradleboard, taken in 1905.

The Menominee are a tribe with a long history in northern Wisconsin, and are still located there.

This image is actually on a postcard, and I’m pretty sure it was colorized back then, not more recently.

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
5 hours ago

In addition to the funnel-head, which is grade A, I believe she is holding a pistol in her right hand. Neal & Welsh seems to have sold a highly diversified inventory.

Arfside
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Reply to  Liverlips McCracken
5 hours ago

It kind of looks like that, but if so, she has her finger on the trigger. Not advised if you intend to follow the 4 rules of gun safety (plus maybe shooting yourself in the foot).

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
3 hours ago

Hmmm. . I see it as a spoon… the handle projecting between her thumb and forefinger, with a couple of other fingers wrapped around the bowl end, and her forefinger just coincidentally lying on top of something else pinned to her dress.

I don’t know what it is… But there are beaded bags, and silver chains, so it could be a pointed chatelaine bag.

If it’s a pistol, instead, it has the skinniest barrel I’ve ever seen… And a very long space between the handle and the trigger.

She seems to be representing a silversmith’s shop…. but if so, why the lovely funnel hat?

In any case, I’m pretty sure Neal and Walsh would be the photographers, not the silver shop. That bottom wording would have appeared on all their portraits and cabinet cards.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  SusanSunshine
3 hours ago

Wow… It still amazes me what the Internet knows.

After posting the above (and yes, I should have done it first, but I wasn’t planning to give it so much time…) I decided to Google it…

And I found all this:

“Neal & Walsh was a photography partnership operating a portrait studio on Harris Street in Cadillac, Michigan, during the 1890s.
Photographs from this studio typically appear as cabinet cards—a style of portraiture highly popular in the late 19th century. These featured an albumen or gelatin silver print mounted onto a heavy cardstock frame, typically measuring roughly 4.25 by 6.5 inches.

The studio’s branding, “Neal & Walsh, Harris Street, Cadillac, Mich.”, is usually stamped or embossed in elegant, stylized typography along the bottom edge or across the back of the cardstock.”

More_Cats_Than_Sense
Reply to  SusanSunshine
3 hours ago

Looks like a gun to me.

Gun
SusanSunshine
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Reply to  More_Cats_Than_Sense
2 hours ago

oh…. Maybe you’re right and the spoon is what’s attached to her dress.

It could even be a silver “ladies'” pistol.

But that barrel still looks so teeny.

Do you think maybe it’s snub-nosed, and the skinny bit is something behind it, not part of it?

Arfside
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Reply to  nighthawks
5 hours ago

Annie Oakley.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  Arfside
3 hours ago

Yes, as a child.

She was born in 1860.

Voxx
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Reply to  nighthawks
9 hours ago

Looking at the clouds, I almost expect a big foot coming down and squashing something.
(cue the Python Theme)

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  Voxx
5 hours ago

I can see it. It isn’t the first thing that comes to my mind, but still. Incidentally, the march the Pythons used as their theme is the Liberty Bell, by John Philip Sousa.

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
5 hours ago

I think she means business.

Arfside
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Reply to  nighthawks
5 hours ago

Passing that bullet train like it’s standing still!

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
3 hours ago

What’s the white thing on the… um… do you call it a windowsill on a train?

Arfside
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Reply to  nighthawks
5 hours ago

Maybe the cat has different ideas about how well it went, just saying….

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  Arfside
3 hours ago

That’s what I was thinking.

Though… if it was the EWC, he’s probably a bit disappointed as well, but only because he let the dog off easy.

happyhappyhappy
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Reply to  nighthawks
9 hours ago

I’ll bet that she has diaphanous wings.

Arfside
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Reply to  happyhappyhappy
8 hours ago

She does look a bit nymph-like. Could it be that they’re only diaphanous when they get wet?

Diaphanous
happyhappyhappy
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9 hours ago

Arfside
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8 hours ago

Hey, it’s $39 per person! And there’s more, much more!

Top-Pick-Cleveland-Tour
happyhappyhappy
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7 hours ago

mr_sherman
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Reply to  happyhappyhappy
3 hours ago

There’s a song about this I heard years ago.

More_Cats_Than_Sense
Reply to  mr_sherman
3 hours ago

‘Murphy and the Bricks’

More_Cats_Than_Sense
Member
3 hours ago

Hybrid Pacific Albus Poplar trees, Boardman Tree Farm in Boardman, Oregon.

Hybrid-Pacific-Albus-Poplar-trees-Boardman-Tree-Farm-in-Boardman-Oregon
More_Cats_Than_Sense
Member
3 hours ago

Royal Flycatcher (female).

Royal-Flycatcher-female
Tigressy
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Reply to  More_Cats_Than_Sense
3 hours ago

Fancy!

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